The Writings of Teresa De Cartagena

by Teresa, Mother; Seidenspinner-Nunez, Dayle

• ISBN13: 9780859914468
• ISBN10: 0859914461
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-05-01
• Publisher: Ingram Pub Services

Summary

'This affordable, engaging and important translation of Teresa de Cartagena's works significantly expands and enriches the current canon of medieval women writers.' ANNE CLARK BARTLETT, DePAUL UNIVERSITYTeresa de Cartagena was born in Burgos in about 1415-20, into a powerful family of Jewish origin. All we know of Teresa comes from her work: she was deaf and not physically strong, she was a nun, and - perhaps the source of her resilience -she was well-educated, above all in religion and moral philosophy. Deaf from early womanhood, her consolatory treatise Grove of the Infirm is a reflection on the spiritual benefits of illness; her second work, Wonder at the Works of God, was apparently written to counter the contention of her critics that a handicapped woman had nothing of value to say. This artful manipulation of the familiar devotional genre of 'the treatise of consolation' reveals a woman writer intimately familiar with the cultural practices of her era; overall, both works allow a rare glimpse into the world of women in fifteenth-century Spain.Dr DAYLE SEIDENSPINNER-NUNEZ teaches in the Department of Romance Languages and Literature at the University of Notre Dame.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Introduction	1	(22)
"More than one Teresa"	1	(3)
The Cartagena/Santa Maria family	4	(4)
The life and writings of Teresa de Cartagena	8	(4)
Grove of the Infirm	12	(2)
Wonder at the Works of God	14	(2)
The ideology of gender in the Middle Ages and medieval literary theory	16	(7)
Grove of the Infirm (Arboleda de los enfermos)	23	(63)
Wonder at the Works of God (Admiracion operum Dey)	86	(27)
Interpretive Essay	113	(26)
From Anxiety of Authorship to Admiracion: Autobiography, Authorship, and Authorization in the Works of Teresa de Cartagena	113	(4)
"This slight and defective work": the poetics of Teresa's autobiography	117	(7)
"The cloisters of my ears": deafness, gender, and writing	124	(7)
"And He alone read (to) me": Admiracion operum Dey	131	(8)
Select Bibliography	139	(10)
Index	149